Comment by Elryl

Comment by FluffypawsQT

This pet has not been linked to anything yet. The mount is out already. Hopefully this one will make its appearance soon! ^.^

Comment by Natalak

There could be a teddybear you can buy, which is the Winged Guardian. The wyvern doll gives a pet too, you know.

Comment by Jakamxg

It appears that there are TWO Guardian Cubs, this one has a duration of one hour and it appears that after that duration it changes (like the Cask of Aged Dalaran Red)into an unbound version that may be traded to other players. I can't see any reason to keep it soulbound for the first hour. This pet is still very secretive and not much is known so I may be way off on this theory.

Comment by kaitiebell

Maybe it's some sort of quest to get the pet? Where one ID is for a companion you just have to complete the quest, and the other is upon completion (and is an actual companion)?

No word about any plans for changes in past or future companion bindings.

Comment by Typhron

"This plan is so awful it has to work."

Comment by mekikya

I am very sad this is not account-bound. I don't plan on spending 10 bucks for all my characters to have a matching pet with their mount. This is a pretty cheap ploy for blizz to try "sell" gold. of course all the gold sellers will now legally "sell" their gold and not get banned for doing it lol

Comment by Happyleo

How exactly is Blizzard selling gold with this, and how are gold sellers going to use this to legally sell gold?

Comment by mekikya

Pet just went on sale at the Blizz store today,

Comment by bttrflykiss

So precious!

Comment by mshaw07

Aww, I'd love to win one!

Comment by mjswdr

Beginning 11/1/11 (nice date), these are being sold for $10 on the Blizzard Store. These bind when picked up and unbind after one day (ty to mekikya for the correction). Contrary to popular belief, Blizzard is NOT selling gold, since any gold you make when selling this comes from real accounts and thus does not inflate the server's economy like the gold sold by third parties does because often enough the third parties hack Blizzard servers and create the gold.

Comment by redhothottie

Name: Guardian Cub

Source: Blizzard Store

Price: 10$

This pet is binds on pick up 24 hours after redeeming then you can trade him or sell in Auction house.

He comes with plain letter:

"Hello!

Please give a warm welcome to your new cuddly cub!

I am so happy you could give this ferocious little flyer a home.

- Breanni"

Comment by Synchronizor

Gold that's bought also comes from real accounts--just hacked ones.

Suppose a Player A is hacked, and loses X gold, which is then sold to Player B. Blizzard then restores Player A's account, including the X amount of gold. The total gold in the game has just been increased by an amount of X. Gold selling from hacked accounts does indeed contribute to inflation just as direct cash-to-gold from Blizzard would.

Blizzard isn't selling gold itself, but they are selling an item that can and will be traded for gold: it just has no fixed or guaranteed value. Hopefully that will have a stabilizing effect on its impact on the economy, but to say that "Blizzard isn't selling gold" simply because there isn't a literal and fixed cash-to-gold ratio is fairly disingenuous.

The fact that the cub has no fixed value means that it will have no real effect on the in-game economy. Suppose, instead of adding a new BoE pet to the online store, Blizzard makes it a reward from a repeatable quest. The only difference between this scenario and the guardian cub is that instead of spending time in-game to obtain the item, players must spend time out-of-game to obtain the real-world money for the item. Both items are subject to the supply-and-demand relationships that will cause the market to settle at a stable price just like any other item.

As the result of a real-world monetary transaction, something of value (a companion pet) is being introduced into the game that didn't previously exist on the servers--which is actually more of an inflation than the gold that comes from hacked accounts.

Value is being created in-game all the time whenever someone obtains an item at the expense of play time. Time is money, and spending it in-game to obtain auction-able items is the same dynamic as spending it out-of-game for the same purpose.

Comment by Synchronizor

Seems to me that getting a pet for real money on the store and asking 10K gold for it on the ingame AH is a derivative form of gold selling.

Gold selling, even illegal gold from hacked accounts, adds gold into the game. This has an unhealthy inflationary effect on the economy. Player-to-player transactions do not introduce any new gold to the game (and when done through the AH, actually remove a slight amount of gold). The Cub is a way to obtain gold by spending RL money, but it is entirely different than direct gold selling; it's essentially giving players the ability to farm in RL.

Comment by blacknexus94

Im pretty sure gold sellers wont dish out the money just for a couple gold. I mean isn't it like $20 for 20k or something like that? They'd be losing money to taxes / not even making a profit.

Comment by Mormodes

I take that back. Mine just sold for 25k

Someone in trade was selling em for 5k so I put mine on AH and it sold in about 10 minutes.

easy money.

Comment by Dayaz

So cute! They come up with the most adorable pets. I think it's nice they make this one tradeable so people can pay cash or in game gold. ^.^

Comment by Mosfet

Have you seen his cute little animation? Do a barrel roll!

Comment by Alfa

Only problem I have with this companion is that its not like the other pet store ones. One per character.

Maybe if you use it before the one day duration, it would appear on all of your characters or at least something a-like.

Either way, love it. :)

Comment by Nightabsm

I think it's pretty awesome that Blizzard has finally released a technical "legal way" to buy gold, espically because of the fact they're bringing the real-life currency Auction House feature into Diablo 3. Blizzard had also mentioned in their post about the pet, that they were "unsure if this Bind on Equip feature will be used with the future Blizzard Store pets.", but I think it would be pretty cool if the newly released Blizzard Store pets were obtainable the way this cub is.

Also, between it's adorable one little tooth on the right side of it's mouth, to it's animations while flying, and on the ground, it's hard to not want one ;P Making it Bind on Equip just gives Blizzard some more sales. ;)

Comment by Tyyrone

Comment by groovz

I bought this and figured Since it was BoP for a day I would leave it in the mail for 24 hours in case I accidnetally right-clicked and learnt it.

I checked the Mail 24 hours Later and it Still said Duration: 1 Day

I looted it so It is in my bags 8 hours ago and now it says Duration: 16 hours.

Moral of the story: Loot this as SOON as you receive it in the mail because the timer does not start until it etners your bags.

Comment by berci71

Is pretty cute and i have to say that I'm looking forward to have companion battle in myst of pandaria!

Comment by Mynxy

Beautiful pet.... not BoA wont be buying this one

Comment by smittykill2011

please cry more pal wwwaaahhhh waaahhh waaahhhhhh QQ mmoorrreeee

Comment by Bisontennial

All these comments and not one answered the question I had.

Does the action of accepting this cub, count as a pet for the pet Achv?

Or is this just an "Item" and not a true "Pet".

On the AH, it IS listed under "Pets".

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Regards

Comment by xxxNEARBYxxx

Now it about 20k on AH (down from 33k). Realm: Trollbane.

Comment by hoikell

Just bought this for 4k on my server's AH. Thanks to whoever wasted $10 for me to get 1 more pet on my total cause bit of advice, you can sell *gasp gasp* BOE VP bracers/boots for higher and not a dime out of your pocket.

Comment by Grim32

Can someone inform me, with the changes in MoP, does this pet become account-wide? As the other pets do?

Comment by jlandheer

As of Patch 5.0.4 this pet is visible on all your characters, just like any other non-combat pet so it does become account-wide.

Comment by TEMP002

Just as a heads up to anyone that wants this pet, now is the time to get it.

Select World of Warcraft pets for $5 -- 50% Savings (Offer includes all Blizzard Pet Store pets except the new Cinder Kitten charity pet...but you should probably adopt a Cinder Kitten anyway since 100% of the purchasing price goes to a great cause).

Comment by Anthoriel

Comment by Naxxilium

Blizzard 04/06/2014: "In approximately two weeks (no sooner than June 18), the titanically cute Guardian Cub will vanish from the Battle.net Shop and head into hibernation in the Blizzard Archive. If you’ve been thinking about adopting this in-game pet, now’s your chance before it's no longer available for purchase."